Mini bench top table-saw

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Not your average framer
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Re: Mini bench top table-saw

Post by Not your average framer »

It's really great to have a recommendation from someone who uses one of these. If it's not too much trouble, would you like to give us an idea of the uses which you find this useful for. This has got me thinking. I have a much bigger table saw, which I have set up outside the back of my shop, when I need to use it. This is not to bad when I have plenty to do, but for quick little jobs, it's not very convenient.

Maybe something else smaller and fairly accurate and quick and easy to use, might be a good item for me to consider buying. I've already been considering getting a minature handheld circular saw to incorporate into a small wooden box with a flat table top to run the wood along. The fence would probably be a piece of wood clamped at both ends.

It would not be anything special, but it does not need to be any thing all that particularly for what I had in mind. I've been also looking at a small cheap table saw with a 200mm dia meter blade. It's only a very cheap, not very special saw, but it's got a blade guard and a fairly basic fence and for £87 inc VAT. So I've got thoughts about something like this already in my brain. I'm just not sure about which solution to go for yet.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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Gesso&Bole
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Re: Mini bench top table-saw

Post by Gesso&Bole »

I use it for adapting mouldings, building shadow boxes, stacking mouldings, and cutting stuff.

To be honest, if I had more space, and could leave it out between uses I would buy something bigger, because the cutting depth is only 25mm. But it does what it is meant to do very accurately, and has nice features like a fine adjustment wheel. I use this a lot when I am wanting my stacked frame to be snug but not tight.

I have got used to the limited cutting depth, and find that I am prepared to compromise for something that is only about 12 inches x 12 inches x 6 inches and I can lift with one hand. It's quick and easy to get it out from under the bench, set it up, use it, and pack it away - all without breaking my back moving heavy stuff.
Jeremy (Jim) Anderson
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Not your average framer
Posts: 11014
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: Mini bench top table-saw

Post by Not your average framer »

Do you use it to make your own slips, spacers ans fillets. I like to do this! I'm quite into deeper flat slips, for me they look a loot more impressive than factory produced slips of only 6, or 7mm deep. I am more inclined to make then 10mm deep and I also hand finish them. Deep slips can cause a bit of a problem with the available rebate depth in some mouldings, so I try to use mouldins with deeper rebates, but this does not always work, so it's not uncommon for me to build out the frame depth with a spacer. I like to produce my slips fully joined at the corners and hand finished to have no visible corner joints. I also like to add to subtile wash and destress the finish to give a little bit aged effect. Customers like the slightly old fashioned looking appearance of what I do.

Deeper bevels on slips look very distinctive and those wider bevels really stand out. I am still wanting to get a more accurate and better bandsaw, but getting one at the moment is very difficult and sanding down slips made on a table saw usually involves more time to get a really smooth finish. A lot of my deep slips are made using flat pine mouldings, meaning that I only have to cut the bevel on the end and that all the other surfaces are already fairly smooth and only require a small amount of sanding just to flatten and slight step at the corner joints. Making the corner joints completely invisible, every time works best by sanding them dead smooth as the the bare wood and although I am not gilding with gold leaf, find that I need to sand every corner dead smooth to make each corner look completely as perfect as I want them.

For me deeper mouldings transform the overall appearance of the whole framing job and help me to charge more for smaller and less profitable frames. For me everything is about customer perception and I never go for the hard sell. I just show them some really stunning options and they choose what they want. Fortuneatantly, customers will often push the boat out for something that they really like.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
Not your average framer
Posts: 11014
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: Mini bench top table-saw

Post by Not your average framer »

I've been thinking a bit laterally about producing a small hand made bench top table saw for cutting the boards for making my own strut backs with. I know that this is probably going to sound a bit crazy, but maybe is not! What's inside a bisciut joiner, well it's a minature circular saw and the saw blade has a blade width, or kerf of 3.7mm and if you go to the little depth selector knob it has setings for 3 different sizes of biscuits and also the letter M. M stands for max and this is the maximum depth of cut that a biscuit jointer can cut to. This maximum extension of the little circular saw blade inside the biscuit joiner produces about a 14mm cutting depth. Not only that, but the aperture where the blade comes out from has it's own built in dust extraction system, so most of the dust gets ejected throgh it own dust exrtaction port. If the biscuit joiner is mounted in to a plywood table top, with the normal biscuit joiner cutting reference face flush will this plywood table top, you have just built a fairly basic table saw, which will probably cut up to 12mm plywood or MDF. Still sounding a bit crazy? Or maybe not!

I've seen budget priced biscuit joiners for as little as £55. I'm waiting for the lock down restrictions to end completely and intend to go and buy one of these and see what can be constructed and how well it will work. I have been very reluctant to cut MDF in doors using a table saw as the dust is normally regarded as a serious health risk, but I am wondering if using a biscuit joiner as the motor and saw blade might be heading a long way to illiminating this hazard. If the particular biscuit joiner has a suitable dust collection port and enough suction is available there may not be any dust to be worried about, from below the board, of wood being cut ant a little extra dust extraction from above, will hopefully take care of any dust from above. The little circular saw blade within a biscuit joiner revolves very fast, approximately 10,000 rpm, so I'm guessing that the quality of the cut should be excellent. £55 and a few scraps of wood and I'm thinking, that might be all it takes to produce a really small bench top table saw. Will it work? I'm guessing that it will. Any thoughts?
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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